St Patrick of Ireland (March 17th)

Of the various commemorations celebrated this week:

March 16 -- SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

March 17 -- St. Patrick, Bishop

March 18 -- St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

March 19 -- St. Joseph - Spouse of the B.V. Mary


Though not a bit Irish, I’ve chosen to write about St. Patrick.  And I do so because I’ve truly come to love him for his example of both faith and capacity to forgive..


The future St. Patrick was born probably in the late 300s A.D. in then Roman Britain.  By his autobiographical Confession of St. Patrick, his father, named Calpurnius, was a Senator, Tax Collector for an unspecified town or region in Britain and a Deacon in Church.  His grandfather Potitus, had been a Priest (StP Conf #1) (note that the practice of priestly celibacy only became the rule in the Western, Catholic Church, in the 8th-9th-10th centuries A.D.  I mention St. Patrick’s grandfather here not to argue any position on the matter, but simply to underline that the future St. Patrick came from a family that was Christian already for several generations).


Even the name Patrick is interesting.  St. Patrick refers to himself throughout his writings as Patricius.  He uses no other name for himself.  Yet arguably the name is something of a put-down: “one from a rich (Patrician) family,” or “little rich boy.”        


So as readers of my blog would have come to see, like many of the other Saints remembered on the Church’s Liturgical calendar, the future St. Patrick was born into a relatively rich / important family.


His life however was turned upside down when (still pagan) Irish raiders attacked St. Patrick’s family’s farm and villa at Bannavem Taburniae (where this farm, villa, or estate would have been located remains unclear) and took him, at age 16,  hostage (StP Conf #1).


It was in slavery that the future St. Patrick came to appreciate and greatly deepen his faith (StP Conf #2, 16)


Writing later in life, St. Patrick wrote that six years after having been taken captive, he heard a voice that told him that “now” was the time for him to flee and that there was a boat waiting for him.  So he fled his captors, for whom he was serving as a shepherd, traveled apparently as many as 200 miles, in Ireland, to the coast, where he did find a ship that took him back to Britain and did make it back to his parents (St.P Conf #23).


What has been remarkable to me about St. Patrick was what followed.  That he became a priest was not altogether surprising – the experience of captivity and hardship in general deepened his faith.  What is remarkable to me is that he came to go back to Ireland – to the people who had kidnapped him– to convert them.


He could have been very bitter: “those people hurt my family and took the best years of my life.”  


Instead, he literally _chose_ to love them, pray for them, and yes succeeded in converting them, to the extent that thanks to the actions of this one man’s faith, Ireland became a bastion Christianity, and centuries later, after Europe had been overrun by barbarians, it was the largely the work of the Irish monks, who arguably would not have existed if not for St. Patrick then returned to continental Europe and reconverted it.


Yes, the faith of one man can change the world.


St. Patrik, Patron Saint of Ireland, pray for us!

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